Olerud363

My explanation above is a bit dumb. Computers don't think like we do. Basically what it does is try to predict the next number from the previous. If you give it 1,1,1 it will predict 1. If you give it 1,2,3 it will predict 4. So it just uses the entire history of baseball statistics to predict Cavan Biggio going forward, so there is no debate that guys that hit like Cavan Biggio has recently on average rebound a bit. What could be debated is maybe there are inputs the computer doesn't know. Take all the guys who went into mid career slumps, and maybe some of them were still hitting the ball hard, or had a smile on their face or something, and those guys rebounded but the ones with sad faces hitting max EV of only 90 didn't... and the computer doesn't know those extra factors but the geniuses on this board do.

The projection is based on the entire history of major league baseball and every player that has ever looked anything like Cavan Biggio. So Lee Mazzili, Matt Carpenter, Rance Muliniks and countless others who hit .190 but still drew walks are input into the computer, and it says "hey Cavan can hit .200 with walks too". That's why it is better then humans because you guys all use bad logic, you think major league pitchers will just throw it right down the middle to Cavan, because he is useless, but that isn't what really happens. Same bad logic as the 'protection theory'. Throwing it right down the middle makes every hitter better, not matter what their talent level. The protection theory is bad, because throwing it down the middle to Vlad Guerrero makes him a .340 .400 hitter, and if the idea is to keep him off base, because he has a great protector behind him it's better to use the pitching pattern that makes him a .280 .350 on base guy. Same with sucky Cavan Biggio. If they throw it down the middle all time he still might hit .230 with a .300 on base percentage and .400 slugging, but if they still nibble he might hit .180 with a few more walks but the same on base and less power. So even hitting .180 noodels that draw walks, still often draw walks.

He had a 97 wRC+ last year and 115-120 his first two years. Projection simply expects him to improve a bit on last year but not get back to 2019/20. Pretty reasonable.

I opened up the MLB app and a 2 month free offer appeared, debating getting it, as I'll probably forget to cancel it. We are all very poor even us in the middle class and based on what I read in one of the other threads we can only afford to sit in the 500 level row 20, except for the lucky posters who are very wealthy and sit in 100 level row 7 behind the dugout. As one of the middle class posters I have a decision to make. I often subscribe to these streaming services to watch one thing or another then forget to cancel and all of a sudden 80 bucks a month is missing. Over the whole year that would be like a 2-4 games, depending on family size with the rich people down low. So big decision to make. Do I go for short term and watch tonight's game? Or long term to save up for nice seats? Especially next year when half the lower bowl is a VIP club and seats might be twice as much down there.

Jays pitchers and Rays pitchers both have about the same strikeout to walk ratio. Jays hitters and Rays hitters both have about the same strikeout to walk ratio., The big difference is homers. Rays have out-homered opponents 40-8, Jays have been out-homered 27-20. Despite this Jays are still 11-8 (albeit with a poor run differential). Fly ball per homerun rates usually are luck. Haven't looked into the fly ball rates, but guessing the Rays have had exceptional homerun per flyball luck (both for and against) and the jays poor flyball to homerun luck and this will normalize. Plus Jays have played a harder schedule so far. Anecdotal story, Monday or maybe Tuesday and George Springer hit 380, 390 and 408 foot fly ball outs, and then Wedensday lined a double down the line except it wasn't a double it was right into a guys glove. Then Jose Abreau hit a blooper in the same situation which started a 6 run rally. Just seems like Jays have had some bad batted ball luck and Rays good and that will probably normalize.

Until around 85 attendance for the Expos games was top 3 in the National League in years they were competitive. Drawing 2.3 million or so a couple of times which was outstanding for that era. Then something began to change. The 92-94 Larry Walker teams did not have the same attendance numbers the good Andrew Dawson teams did, despite being just as exciting and just missing. Of course we will never know what attendance would have been in August through September 1994. Then the strike, lots of stars leaving and 97 through 2001 the team was a massive mess. Despite being first told they were to be contracted, then told they were going to be moved, then told to play 20% of their games in Puerto Rico there were signs attendance was starting to rebound 2002 and 2003 with interesting, sort-of-competitive teams, then they had a horrible 2004 and moved. What does it all mean for Montreal as a market? Not sure. Can't imagine Oakland, Cleveland, Tampa Bay, Miami, Pittsburgh, and a few other cities doing any better than Montreal, if they had to play in a terrible stadium, in the suburbs with uncommitted ownership and runs of 6something win seasons. So what is Montreal like with a nice downtown Stadium, decent ownership and average competitive winning cycles?

The politics on the board always begins with a lib slant that the mods let go... I'm pretty center of the road politically, but pretty sure shop lifting is a problem. Always has been, but in the last few years trends in homelessness, drug use, and shoplifting, which are correlated have been up. Seems like that should be a common sense. On the other hand are armed gangs of scary different people terrorizing the local Walmart? Probably not. I've never seen it at least. Just as likely white rich kids who want more than their allowance will buy are shoplifting around where I live.

Late July 2019 they had Stroman and an upcoming 5th overall pick and 120 million dollars and turned those 3 things into Jose Berrios.

I checked 2021, and Manoah did something similar. Winning big games against TBR twice and keeping the Jays in the playoff hunt. He had 1 bad game against Oakland (which Jays came back to win) and everything other start was great after mid-August, in what were pressure packed games.

Starting late August to the end of last year he pitched amazing in what had to be the most pressure packed games the Jays played in since 2016. People forget but last year was nerve wracking. Baltimore got to within a 1/2 game of the Jays and it looked like they might not even make the Playoffs, but then Manoah had an amazing stretch, winning against the Yankees, Rays (twice), Baltimore, should have won against Baltimore again but Romano blew it, and his 1 loss was when he left trailing 1-0 against Ohtani. He did have a bad game in the playoffs. Something is off this year but I don't think it is pressure. Just something is off.

I like openers. It would be fun to see Pearson and Tiedemann as openers later in the season.

Didn't he have a 60% ground ball rate and a really low homerun rate before this year? I know k-rates have gone up over the decades, but there was a time when it was accepted that hard throwing sinker-ballers could be good without a high k-rate. Halladay (pre 2008, when his k-rates went up for some reason), Brandon Webb, Aaron Sanchez (until he got injured), Chien Ming Wang like pulled off 600 good innings with like 4 ks per 9 or something. I recall all these guys being very hard throwers, low in the strike zone. Those guys were starters, accept for Sanchez's 80 innings as a reliever, which were good. Have there been any good relievers last few years, pull off a multi year run, with 80 innings pitched, 60 ks and only 2 or 3 homers given up?

I haven't looked into the studies on that, but right away I'd think it was because players are DHing a lot when they are half crippled. They get fully healthy and they play the field again. Seems Springer Dhs a lot when his elbow half worked. Same with Bryce Harper. Got to think that plays into it. Totally agree with the main point though. If Kirk hit .290 .380 .440 as a DH, that would be great. Don't have to be a David Ortiz, and I wouldn't care if he clogged the spot for players that need a rest. If they need a rest, give them a rest. Half-crippled tired players are not great DHs.

What about bold predictions that run counter to early trends? Bassit wins 15 and gets ERA under 3.5 by end of season. Same with Berrios. Belt is AL player of the month in May and wins DH silver slugger.

Saw this and all of a sudden my expectations for this game are way down. Thought it would be battle of the s***-ballers and the very weak, powerless Jays might get their first homerun. The homer ratio might be 9-0 though by the end of the night, facing what is essentially a very good opening day starter, vs. the Jays shitballer.

The Cardinals out-homered the Jays 6-0. Their homerun per flyball rate was infinite times the Blue Jays fly ball per homerun rate. If the Jays and opponents fly ball per homerun rate normalizes things will be OK I think. If the opposition continues to outhomer the Jays by a 324 to nothing pace the season will be very bad. If the homerun rates don't normalize because somehow the Jays lost their man strength, and Jays pitchers all throw 90 (except Kukichi) then season will be bad. I am usually the first one ready to jump off a ledge but I will wait a few games yet.

Intentional walks seem to be down, and except for weird cases like Barry Bonds it has historically almost never been an automatic. With 2 outs for sure your point is valid. But none outs runners on 2nd and 3rd, I wonder if the game probabilities indicate the intentional walk there is the wrong move. The thing is you will be pitching to the scrub no matter what, and even if things go well O'Neil no matter what. So with none out the decision has to be made looking at the batter 3 lineup spots away. Do you pitch to Arenado or Gorman? If you walk Arenado you get the advantage of facing a worse hitter (Gorman) and set up a force. Disadvantage is the extra runner which could lead to a bigger inning.

Gabriel Martinez is already arguably top 5 if you made stats only rankings considering age and k-rate. Since he is lower on most of the lists I assume there is something the scouts don't like. I'm no insider as to how these lists are made, but it seems to me that a couple of small differences in stats would change the impression of Martiinez a lot, like if he just above .300 instead of just below, and if he played 20 more games and collected more impressive counting stats. I was really surprised that he was both not protected on the 40 man and not chosen. Again kind of indicates there might be something there that people don't like. Rule 5 guys aren't really that much of a thing anymore other than relievers, but can't believe one of the 10 or so non-contenders couldn't use a roster spot on him. Like in 2019 the Jays used a Roster spot on a 19 year old, very raw and useless reliever. Wouldn't Gabriel Martinez be a better bet than that?

Vs. the Yankees? You have to be kidding me. The old coots who subscribe to YES network will be rioting, and the young people, who got the Apple games for free last year may riot too.

I think they won 92 last year and this years Fangraphs projection is 89. https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Standings Projections always have a lower variation than real standings I think. For example Jays fangraphs projection of 89 is like tied for 5th. Projected standings don't have many teams above 95 (none for FG this year) or below 65. The variation that leads to 100 or 50 win seasons is not predictable. Carlos Math (88) is closer to the real Math(89) than Spanky Math, though that doesn't mean you are wrong. Math might be wrong. Jays win 110. (Probably some of the other projection systems have more variability, I think Baseball Prospectus standings may have more outliers... I don't know. Too lazy to look, research, or think about how the predicted variability works).

Kind of funny but probably true, she didn't really actually diss him as a total dead beat just that they blew the money then all had to work hard to make ends meet. No idea if she was estranged from her Dad all that time, or if they were all in it together trying to survive. Probably would make a great movie. I recalled Jose doing weird things like playing in independent leagues, a boxing match, a car wash (I looked that one up) and writing his tell-alls. I assume most of that was because he needed the money.

Otto Lopez is interesting. A better minor league hitter and faster than Espinal, so if he adjusted to the majors as well as Espinal did in 2021 he'd have a great year (though not sure how he gets the apr. 145 games he'd need to content for ROY).

The sample size isn't huge, but as a hitter he's been basically Grichuk, though his on base percentage is a bit higher. He's like a .305 on base percentage guy and Grichuk is .290. Your comment isn't totally unfair. Big difference is the defense. His D-numbers are elite. Other big difference is the minor league numbers. Varsho has a .372 minor league on base percentage, Grichuk .320 SO Varsho is hopefully like 2018 Grichuk, with a tad better on base and D, which makes him like a close to 4 WAR player (Grichuk was close to 3).

Interesting that you have Barger and Damiano Palmegiani higher than most. Is that stats based or watching them? Barger had great stats last year, on the surface Palmegiani did not. However I saw a while ago a projection system had him already at 100+ wRC in the majors. A couple of guys rolled their eyes at that because he just hit .239 in the minors at age 23. Though he has good walk rates and some power so maybe the projection system is picking up something (k/bb may be better than Barger, don't have time to look it up right now)

Despite being young 85 was the peak of that iteration of the team. Bell, Barfield and Moseby had their highest combined WAR in 85. Stieb reached his peak in 85. I started following closely in '88 and the narrative was already of a decaying team. They made the playoffs again in 89 but by then Barfield was gone, Moseby was cooked, Bell lost half his power. Fernandez honestly seemed to lose a lot after getting hit in the head real bad by a pitch. Does anyone else remember all this?